With the development of a global economy, business persons who regularly travel to other countries are a fast growing breed. To meet their needs, satellite-based global telecommunications networks are being developed. The first such network is to be commercially activated by Iridium LLC on Nov. 1, 1998. These networks provide international wireless phone, paging, fax, and data services. When a caller phones a network subscriber by dialing his phone number, one of four termination scenarios conventionally occurs: (1) the call completes to the wireless phone; (2) the wireless phone is "not reachable", i.e., out of coverage area or turned off; (3) the wireless phone rings but is not answered; or (4) the wireless phone is busy. In scenarios (2)-(4), the subscriber may miss important calls, and the network provider cannot bill for the use of its network since the calls were not completed, leading to lost revenue.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a uniform call termination method for a global telecommunications network which allows subscribers to receive messages and for network providers to bill for the use of their network when a network phone is not reachable, not answered, or busy. The present invention addresses such a need.